National Blog

Ron Paul's Victory

Since this week marks the 79th birthday of Campaign for Liberty Chairman Ron Paul and the two-year anniversary of the infamous 2012 GOP Convention, where the establishment rammed through a rules change designed to disenfranchise the grassroots, this week seems like a good time to revisit Jim Antle's 2012 article on why Ron Paul was the true victor in 2012:

After decades of laboring in obscurity in the House, casting lonely no votes, Paul has captured the imagination of millions with his two Republican presidential campaigns. Now the GOP conference can vote 238-1 on an issue of interest to him and actually have “Dr. No” on the winning side.

That’s not to say Paul has prevailed in any final sense. Mitt Romney is about as far from Ron Paul as a Republican presidential nominee can be. The Republican National Committee is working hard to ensure that the delegate rules make it difficult to mount even a phony opposition to the party establishment, like Rick Santorum, much less a principled constitutionalists alternative like Paul.

Romney covets Paul’s voters. His running mate Paul Ryan practically begged for them. This is a positive step. Republican leaders once recognized the appeal of Pat Buchanan’s brigades too, trying to win them over with Bob Dole’s clumsy invocation of “fair trade” and George W. Bush’s solemn promises of a “humble foreign policy without such lip service changing the GOP. Perhaps today’s promises to actually declare wars and promote sound money are similar gestures.

Yet the rapid progress in a short period of time is undeniable. So too is the enthusiastic group of supporters rallying behind Paul’s message, even as he prepares to retire from the House and leave electoral politics. While no one can replace a Ron Paul, he does have a small but growing band of successors.

There was a time in recent memory when Paul’s ideas about monetary policy were as marginal as his foreign policy convictions remain among GOP elites. Today they are moving inexorably toward the mainstream. Paul’s dutiful defense of the unpopular has paid dividends before. With work and more than a little luck, it could again.

Whether the proceedings in Tampa end with the final gavel in the hall or the first wind gusts in a vulnerable densely populated area, there will be two enduring images. One will be of Romney winning the nomination, resulting either in his assumption of presidential power or his return to irrelevance after November. The other will be of Ron Paul, rallying his young troops one last time as a candidate in his own right.

The large crowd applauding Romney wants only a winner. Nearly everyone in that convention hall outside his own relatives would be indifferent if he was replaced with another cookie-cutter politician. The people cheering Paul are looking for victory over the long term and can’t imagine another standard-bearer.

Jim is one of the numerous great speakers at LPAC 2014. Jim, head of the Daily Caller News Foundation, as well as contributor to RARE Liberty and The American Conservative, has that all-too-rare combination of excellent reporting skills, a passion for liberty, and an understanding that the Republican establishment is part of the problem. His book, Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped, is one of the best examinations of the damage done by "Big Government Conservatives" during the Bush years, the ongoing civil war between the liberty movement and the establishment, and why the victory of the liberty movement is essential if the GOP is to remain a major party and the country is going to avoid a major economic calamity.

In addition to Jim and other great speakers, LPAC 2014 will provide you with the training you need to beat the statists in both parties, build on the progress we have made in the past few years, and win back our lost liberties.